Tag: Depression

For some reason in December I find myself taking stock of what has been the whirlwind that was 2018. I’ve not been here much, which means I have not documented important things I wish I had. In time I will come to regret that, especially now that some of the finer details are fading from my memory.

There was a lot this year. An awful lot. Periods of happiness, sadness, dreams that disappeared and self reflection. Essentially I am the same, but at the same time I am not. I’ve changed, I am changing. The hardest thing is getting others to accept me for the flawed person that I am, or perhaps it is me learning to accept the flawed person that I am. There is nothing wrong with being flawed, it is what makes me unique. There is nothing wrong with being me, I just didn’t realise it until now, that I did not need anyone else’s approval.

I’ve missed writing. I’ve forgotten how much I need it. Still though I find myself restricted, I need to get over that, it is my choice to write and others choice as to whether they read.

I am a work in progress. My counsellor scolds me when I tell her that I do not think I can be fixed. I know everyone has issues with themselves, but no matter how hard I try I cannot even like, nevermind love myself. I still have sessions left and I hope against all hope that my hard hitting counsellor has the key to unlock the secret.

I changed physically this year too, a change that is now becoming noticable to others. Sometimes I can see it, but oftentimes not, so I still hide in clothes a size too big for my now slightly smaller frame. This is a change I would also like to build upon if I can.

Christmas is coming, the most wonderful time of the year, but my heart is lonely because I miss where I was 8 months ago, I miss what I had 8 months ago.

Where will I be in 8 months time…….we shall just have to wait and see.

I’ve lost count of how many times that I’ve said a year is going to be different as the stroke of midnight blended the old into the new.

2017 started with great promise, it was going to be the year I got things done. I had plans to change myself, both mentally and physically. I was going to become a better person, buoyed by the counselling sessions I had been through. But as we all know, great promises can be broken, often times unintentionally.

I would say that neither 2016 or 17 were great years in my book. I’ve been battling a bout of depression, my first bad one since around 2003. Then I managed to pull myself together without the need for anti-depressants and this time I am trying to do the same, albeit there is a much bigger hill to climb and I am not sure I can do it without some assistance.

As with everything though, there were good times as well as bad. While not cured, I have changed. My counselling has been beneficial, in fact it quite possibly saved my life. This time, despite everything, there have been no thoughts of needing to hide a stash of tablets in case things got so bad that I did not want to carry on. These days I use the coping mechanisms I have been taught and while still there and sometimes severe, bouts of anxiety do not last as long as they previously would have.

In 2017 laugher was more of a feature along with meeting new friends and continuing to value those I already have. I’m not any better at social interaction, that still needs a lot of work, but not everything can happen all at once. The point is, I am trying.

Where work was concerned I had a lot of light bulb moments. I said goodbye to one colleague and welcomed a new one, through whom I am learning to have a better understanding of myself, mainly because we are so similar. We work well as a team and we have good foundations on which we can continue to build on in 2018.

Writing has been pretty sporadic, even by my own standards. I’ve been wondering if perhaps that is why I am currently feeling the way I do. Writing is therapeutic and also quite possibly something else I need as a coping mechanism. I’m still trying to figure out where the new me fits within the blogging world as I alternate between good days and bad, sad and happy.

I’m not going to make any grand promises for 2018. What would be the point. Instead I am going to go with the flow.

If you’re reading this, thank you for doing so and also for sticking with me for another year. Your support has meant more than you could know.

When I write I never think, hey, someone might relate to this post and be glad they read it. Instead, I think, here’s another post that people can think to themselves ‘oh here she goes again’.

When I write, I never think that someone else might be experiencing the same feelings and take comfort from realising they are not alone. Instead, I think people will want to give me a good boot up the backside.

When I write, I never think this is actually good for me.

But. It. Is.

That’s my problem you see, I don’t write, because I worry what other people will think. I need to stop that, because this blog belongs to me and no one else.

Instead of worrying about what people are going to think of me when they read what is actually going on in my head, I should ask myself do they care enough to know everything about me and love the person I actually am, not the person they think I am.

I am many different things to many different people. Some good, some bad.

To myself I am a failure. Gotta love mental health.

I talk about things now, whereas I wouldn’t have prior to counselling. Talking is therapeutic. My talk though, is through my fingertips, because it’s still hard to do the face to face sometimes without becoming emotional.

I’m not in a good place right now, but the key to knowing how to get back on the road to recovery is recognising there is a problem in the first place. Perhaps it’s first anniversaries, or simply the time of the year. It might even be the lack of sunlight or maybe a lack of sleep, but there is something that is a little off kilter.

The good thing about the darkness though is that there is always light to balance it and that is something to reach for and look forward to, all I have to do is flick the switch.

It’s been a minute since I’ve been here. I’d like to tell you it’s because I’ve been doing ok, but the reality is I’ve been doing the same, I just haven’t had much time to write.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately, thinking about doing things that I never quite seem to get done.

I’ve been thinking about my Mum and how this time last year we were approaching the end of a long road, only we didn’t know it then.

I’ve been thinking of all the things I did, and all the things I feel I could have done better, beating myself up and crying myself to sleep over the what ifs. But the reality is it’s over. It’s too late to go back and stupid to dwell on hindsight. But still I do it.

I’ve finally come to terms with the fact that I have mental health issues. It’s actually quite freeing to be able to say that. There’s nothing wrong with being me, because, well I am me, flawed but fully functional. There is a lot to be thankful for.

I have a lot of work to do, which involves challenging my thinking and how I deal with situations. I need to make peace with myself regarding my Mum and realise that then, at that time, I did the best I could, and that’s all anyone can ask.

I’ll write about things here, but I don’t want pity or sympathy, I just want somewhere safe to go so I can note things down in order to try and make sense of them. I love the term getting my metaphorical ducks in a row, so I’ll use it.

I’m ok. I’ll always be ok, because I know that despite how dark it gets sometimes, there is always light at the end of the tunnel and a million reasons to get up in the morning.

Me and my updates huh, don’t you just love them. Probably not, but hey, right now it’s all I have to give.

I have finally been able to cross a task off my list. After working all weekend one of my things to do is finally done and it’s a huge weight off my shoulders. There’s still plenty on the list mind you, but that was the one I was worrying about the most.

Winter is coming, and not in a Game of Thrones kind of way. The past weekend saw the change to heavier quilts, noticeably shorter nights and those damp and dreary grey mornings which can sometimes signal frost. Thankfully though there is none just yet.

This year has flown in, and with everything that went on last year it feels like most of it was a blur for me. I think I’ve got a touch of the sads, maybe because it’s approaching Mum’s anniversary and I’ve been thinking about her a lot lately or maybe it’s just in general because there has been so much going on. Either way I need to give myself a good boot up the backside, there is plenty to be done.

Next on the agenda is house clearing. There is still loads of stuff that needs to go to the charity shop, cupboards that need emptied and sorted and two or three trips to the dump with what has already been earmarked for disposal. All of that is going to have to wait a couple of weeks though because work is going to be pretty full on due to my colleague going on holiday. It’s going to be weird not having her around, I’ve got used to someone being in the office with me.

I’m sorry I haven’t been around reading much this weather, the train WiFi has been a bit sketchy and the only time I usually get to read is on my journey to work in the morning because weekends have been tied up with work, but hopefully in the next couple of weeks things will start to ease freeing up some time.

Well, you’ll be glad to hear that’s about it. No glitz and glamour in my life I’m afraid, but enough to keep me busy and out of mischief!

If there’s one thing I’ve learned from having mental health issues, it’s that communication is key. Take it from someone who knows, I bottled things up or tried to deal with them on my own for a lot longer than I should have.

The process of opening yourself up to another person is a complex one, there is always that fear of rejection or disbelief. There is also the realisation that once you have decided to speak, people may choose not to listen and believe me, there is nothing worse than not being heard.

It took me a long time to realise that my internal turmoil was not visible on the outside and I became accustomed to being referred to as quirky or weird. Oddly enough, as the years passed I became quite proud of those two monikers, it meant I was an individual.

Looking back, I think I expected people to instantly recognise what my flaws were and make allowances for them, the problem was, I needed to back up the expectation with explanation, which was something I never did. Instead, I wore people out with my complex thought processes bourne from a lifetimes lack of self confidence.

Never be afraid to talk, and to keep talking until someone listens. We don’t even have to open our mouths, we can also use our fingers to weave their magic via pen, notebook or keyboard. Its therapeutic. I’ve found that noting my words down, be that in a journal or online, helps me to process the particular issue I’m facing. It might not always provide a solution, and that’s ok, because sometimes all that is needed is a good dose of reality.

I’m better at voicing my feelings, but I’m not quite adept at it yet. I still tend to back away if challenged and I often get frustrated when the person who I am voicing my concerns to either interprets it as a string of excuses or chalks it down to my anxiety.

One thing is for sure though, I will keep talking, it’s taken me so long to get to this point. I can’t stop now.

As Mandy Hale once said, ‘Just be yourself. Let people see the real, imperfect, flawed, quirky, weird, beautiful and magical person that you are.’

It’s probably a bad idea to write a blog post when you’re cross, and I am cross today. Its been another fun filled day in the office and I’ve completely fallen out with myself. About 45 minutes after going in, I wanted to turn on my heel and go back out, but I didn’t have the balls.

It’s fitting I suppose that I should feel like this, because I’ve finally stopped wondering what I am going to do with my blog. After much pondering, humming and haaahing I’ve decided I’m going to do nothing. Nothing drastic anyway.

This blog is important for me, especially on days like today where I need to stop, sit down and have a serious fucking think about where my life is going.

You see if it wasn’t for this space and it’s blank pages, I probably wouldn’t talk about the veritable storm that goes on between my ears. Instead I’d dwell, ponder and make mountains out of molehills. More so than I do normally.

I’m not the same person I was four years ago when I started this blog and it’s unlikely that I ever will be again, so I need to stop pretending to be someone I am not and embrace who I am becoming instead.

In order to do that I need to be able to write everything and about all parts of me. When I started blogging and chose to be anonymous, things were a lot easier, but when people from real life started to find out my words became stifled. So much so that despite the fact that my mind was awash with ideas, many posts remained in my head unwritten.

In reality I like to think that sometimes I can be funny, but I am hounded by anxiety and I have no doubt that often times depression nips at my heels. So I suppose in essence that means there are two sides to me, on one hand we have the public persona and on the other we have the private one. Although both are very different, when they are put together they make up the person I am.

I need and want to be able to express myself on this blog, and going forward that is something I am going to try to do. I don’t need anyone to worry about me. I find writing extremely therapeutic, it helps me to put things into perspective and sort them out. I don’t write for sympathy and nor do I want sympathy. I’m not the only person in the world with problems and this wonderful community proves that. We work and we support each other and for me that is the real beauty behind blogging.

So, you’re stuck with me for a while longer. I’ve decided to take you on my journey of discovery. It’s all about finding out who I am.

Some days there will be tears and some days there will be laughter, but that’s all part of life isn’t it, we have to take the good with the bad.

Thank you so much for being here for the last however many years, months or days you have followed, I have no doubt I have received more from this community than I have given and I feel truly blessed to be a part of it.

To celebrate and as a present to myself, I finally mapped my domain name, I doubt you will have noticed, but it’s just something small that makes things a little more permanent for me.

Also, excluding social media followers, one of my goals was always to reach 1000 followers on WordPress itself. At the time of writing this post there are 998. I’ve decided that’s good enough because in life I am never really quite where I want to be, but it doesn’t stop me trying anyway.

Just over four years ago I had nothing, just some words on a page and no followers. Now I am a part of something I love, and I hope that continues for a long time.

Sometimes you want to write about things, other times you want to just bury your head in the sand and hope it all goes away. I sort of adopted a half and half approach to this particular funk, I didn’t want to write about it, but there was too much going on for me to walk to the beach to bury my head in the sand, so I stayed quiet and hoped it would disappear.

Sometimes I get cross and need to vent, you have no doubt experienced a few on here if you are a regular follower. Usually though when I get the funk I won’t write at all, mainly because I don’t like sympathy or comments. It’s hard to be funny all the time, and it’s hard to maintain a smile for 8 hours a day when the reality is you just want to beat someone senseless with your shoe. For explanation purposes, I picked a shoe because beating someone with your handbag is such an old lady thing to do and I am feeling old enough as it is!

I’ve been so tired, a combination of too many late nights, a more stressful job and an increased workload in the house. I find myself nodding off in the chair when I finally get to sit in it, which in turn makes me fall out with myself. I hate the idea of wasting the couple of precious hours I get to do my own things, like blogging, falling asleep in a chair.

I hadn’t had a day off for 6 weeks (excluding the weekends of course) so I booked a days leave on Friday because basically my hair looked like I had been playing with balloons and static electricity, I kid you not, it was so wild I half expected to find birds nesting in there. From the moment I stepped downstairs on Friday morning, the Mothership decided it was going to be another weekend of blowing up over stupid little things whether it be force feeding me out of date chicken before I had even had breakfast or a full on melt down over fucking wheelie bins, you name it, it irked her and I got caught in the crossfire. By 11am I was wishing I had gone to work.

When you’re already in a funk that shit doesn’t help, it’s mentally draining. By Saturday morning after at least 10 interruptions while I was trying to get some work done I was ready to jump out a window, backwards, because I did not want my body’s built in air bags to save me!

There is no escape from it. I used to love taking days off, now I dread it, but at the same time I need them.

Thing is though, it’s not just me in a funk, so many of you are feeling exactly the same way. I wonder what’s causing this general feeling oh mehness that hangs over us all like little rain clouds, is it something to do with the fact that Brussel Sprouts are out of season and we therefore have no fuel to blow the blues away?

It’s time to banish the meh, say goodbye to glum, dispense with the doldrums and get our happiness heads on. So for just 2.39 minutes crank up the volume and sing along with Little Voice, it’s time to Get Happy! :)

Writing my post last night, and all the funny comments that followed really made my night. I went to bed with a smile on my face, the first in a long time.

It reminded me how I used to be, I felt a spark of my old self.

I wish you had all known me before my accident and the birth of Alien leg. In essence I was, and always will be the same person, but I was a little more carefree and a lot more fun.

There have been a lot of changes over the last couple of years, and the stresses of everyday life sometimes takes it’s toal. Both physically and mentally I am no longer the same person. I’ve had to grow up, while learning to adjust to my hopefully temporary disability.

There are some things I will always be stuck with, like anxiety and worry, they are now ingrained in me, perhaps they always were, because looking back I cannot remember a time when I did not worry. That said, these days I seem more able to put things into perspective and employ coping mechanisms. There are other more important things to deal with.

Home life has been the biggest change, even since the time of starting this blog. It is also the main reason why sometimes I do not blog. We have to approach life one day at a time, as the mood of the Mothership determines the mood of everyone else in the household. Sometimes I am mentally drained and incapable of sensible thought never mind writing.

Someday I will write about these things, I need to, it’s not healthy to keep it bottled up, but for now it is not something I feel comfortable doing, even though this is my space.

There are days I resent the fact that I have become a carer, yet other days I just get on with it. Lately I have become resigned to the fact that this is now my life and I am trying to deal with it as best I can. Perhaps this is what has been mapped out for me.

You may not have liked the person I was before, but I loved to laugh and make people laugh. I was always a thinker, but I chose to write my thoughts rather then speak them. I was relatively funny, but better when I had someone to spark off, a partner in crime so to speak.

Last night the interaction and laughter gave me hope that perhaps someday I will be able to return to the person I was pre injury.

Image from notable-quotes.com

I like the fact that I can write this post and still be smiling and feel positive, despite everything. Perhaps the fog of depression that has hung above me since my accident is now starting to clear and there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Thank you to each and every person who has helped to guide me towards it. You kept on pushing me forwards. In the words of Owl City, it certainly does feel like every day like I get a thousand hugs from ten thousand lightening bugs!

Tomorrow has become today, so you know what that means right, yep, it’s New Year! It’s been a very quiet day, I remarked to my friend whilst we were having lunch that, for me anyway, it did not feel like New Years Eve at all.

Now the night has arrived I almost feel like I should be doing something, I dunno, let’s say swinging my granny pants over my head on a dance floor somewhere. The sad reality is though that I am so tired I am considering falling into bed and sleeping through the big event. I’m crafty though, I am going to type this now and schedule it for just after midnight. If you are reading it on the 1st of January (GMT) then my first foray into the world of scheduling was a resounding success.

2013 has been an up and down year for me. I had high hopes after the disaster that was 2012 that the new year was going to bring great things. In some ways it did, but it’s still been challenging none the less.

I finally admitted to myself that after the whole alien leg thing I was struggling with a bout of mild depression. In relation to the recovery process I had been prepared for the physical pressure, but I had no idea how badly it would affect me mentally. I’m used to being able to do most things for myself, so having to take a back seat in some aspects and even rely on other people for assistance did not sit well with me. I still get extremely frustrated when there are things I can’t do, or on the days when I feel like the lower half of my body belongs to someone else. I’m learning to cope with the back pain that comes from the change to my gait, and the fact that my leg gives out at random intervals. The whole healing process is just going to take a little longer than I initially thought.

The biggest changes this year have been to my home life, with my Mum having stroke damage / dementia. Looking back it’s hard to believe I ever had a part time job. As things stand currently there is no way I would be able to return. Most days I adopt the ‘just get on with it’ attitude, but occasionally I feel it sitting very heavily on my shoulders and worrying about the future suffocates me. People tell me not to worry, but unless you are living in the situation day in, day out, it’s a rather rash statement to make. Here’s the thing though, I’m a bit of a believer in the saying ‘Things happen for a reason’, so I think there is a reason why I am here, it’s just not become apparent yet. I am extremely lucky to have good family and friends whose hands help me up when I am feeling down.

In 2013 I started blogging. The Geeky G4mer became The Indecisive Eejit and I found a little space on blogsphere where I was happy. I could never have imagined how much of a lift it would give me when on the 31st March 2013 I published my first post entitled ‘Ach what about ye’. In all honesty I had no intentions of staying, I figured it would be just another one of my fly by night ideas, but then a wonderful little thing known as interaction happened.

People started liking and commenting and following and as I got to know them all a new little group of friends formed, not to replace, but to compliment those I already had.

There have been days when the forecast has looked bleak and one of you has added a ray of sunshine. You all, have been an immense help to me, giving me a reason to keep on with my writing, offering me encouragement, sympathy, love and hope. I honestly do believe I would not have made it through unscathed without your support.

So to all of you, Internet friends, real life friends and my family, I wish you nothing but the best for 2014. Set your expectations low, but aim big.

Pri-Li sent me this via Facebook and I just had to share, because it summed up this Eejit and her followers perfectly:

Not every flower can say love, but a rose can.
Not every plant survives thirst, but a cactus can.
Not every numpty can read, but look at you havin a go!
This is a sentimental time of the year.
Please send an encouraging message to fucked up friends, just as I’ve done.
I don’t care if you lick windows, or occasionally shit yourself.
You hang in there cupcake, you’re fuckin special, you’re my mate!
Look at you smiling at your phone!